EU Deal
‘Time is running out for Switzerland,’ Juncker warns

This content was published on September 13, 2018 9:28 PMSep 13, 2018 - 21:28

Both the European Parliament and Switzerland are holding elections in 2019.

(Keystone)

The president of the European Commission is urging Switzerland to reach an agreement with Brussels as soon as possible and rejects the possibility of a partial Swiss-EU framework deal.

"Time is running out," Jean-Claude Juncker said in an interview with Swiss public television, RTS. “Negotiate with me, conclude with me, because within a year I will no longer be there, and you will see.”

He warned “it could be really bad” for Switzerland after his departure.

Juncker said he wants “a global agreement” and dismissed the idea of an incremental agreement.

The president also wants to avoid EU negotiations with Switzerland to overlap with the European bloc’s talks with the United Kingdom, which are focused on how to manage the relationship post-Brexit.

He was speaking the day after his last State of the European Union speech in the French city of Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament, where he called for a stronger Europe.

Brussels and Bern have been in talks since 2014 in a bid to formalise relations between the two sides, now covered by around 100 separate accords.

Special measures to protect Swiss wages and working conditions – so-called flanking measures for the free movement of persons – top a long list of unresolved issues.

RTS/ds

Neuer Inhalt

Horizontal Line

WEF 2018

WEF Teaser 2018

subscription form

Form for signing up for free newsletter.

Sign up for our free newsletters and get the top stories delivered to your inbox.

There are 31 comments on this article.

Copyright

All rights reserved. The content of the website by swissinfo.ch is copyrighted. It is intended for private use only. Any other use of the website content beyond the use stipulated above, particularly the distribution, modification, transmission, storage and copying requires prior written consent of swissinfo.ch. Should you be interested in any such use of the website content, please contact us via contact@swissinfo.ch.

As regards the use for private purposes, it is only permitted to use a hyperlink to specific content, and to place it on your own website or a website of third parties. The swissinfo.ch website content may only be embedded in an ad-free environment without any modifications. Specifically applying to all software, folders, data and their content provided for download by the swissinfo.ch website, a basic, non-exclusive and non-transferable license is granted that is restricted to the one-time downloading and saving of said data on private devices. All other rights remain the property of swissinfo.ch. In particular, any sale or commercial use of these data is prohibited.